Mercado Bitcoin hackers swap $11M in stolen altcoins for ETH

Hop wallets tied to the Brazilian exchange breach converted more than 136 tokens into Ether, while a $650,000 bridge to Bitcoin appears to have stalled The people who drained Brazilian crypto exchange Mercado Bitcoin are cashing out their grab bag. Hop wallets linked to the breach sold $10.55 million in stolen tokens for ETH, turning a messy pile of altcoins into one of crypto’s most liquid assets. The thieves also tried to move some of the loot into Bitcoin. That attempt, a bridge worth roughly $650,000, appears to have stalled. From a junk drawer of tokens to one asset The conversion spree ran from November 3 to 4. Over that stretch, the attacker swapped more than 136 different tokens into Ether. Estimates of the total value converted range from approximately $10.55 million to $11.9 million. Either way, it is a large share of the stolen haul now sitting in a single asset rather than scattered across dozens. Swapping into ETH serves a practical purpose. A hundred-plus small-cap tokens are hard to move without wrecking their prices or drawing attention. Ether trades deep enough to absorb large sums, and unlike centrally issued stablecoins, it has no company that can freeze it on re...